I’m thankful it’s another Father’s Day – and, specifically, for my dad! Just as I shared some of the many great attributes of my mom, I’m sharing just a few of my favorites about my dad.
I am so blessed to have a great dad – I'd say the best! Unfortunately, we have a world with many absent fathers. But to those of us who have received Christ, no matter what our earthly father is like, we have the ultimate, Heavenly Father – who loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us, is always with us and has promised never to leave nor forsake us.
Today when my family celebrated Father’s Day over lunch, my earthly dad reminded us about our need to rely on our Heavenly Father. That’s a pretty good segue to my father’s best quality: his complete commitment to Jesus, which makes him the best example of what spiritual leadership is supposed to look like in family leader. My dad, who is passionate about evangelism, has told us how he came to know Jesus about 31 years ago, the year I was born. He had grown up going to a Christian school, church and being a “good” kid, but that year was the first time that he could say The Gospel penetrated his heart and changed his life. I am pretty sure that, from that point on, he committed himself to following Jesus wholeheartedly.
My dad is an academic with several degrees, but I have never seen him more committed to any study than the study of God’s Word. He reads it, digests it, memorizes it and lives it. And he passed his zeal for God and His Word on to his family. He’s always made sure that we relate the Word to everything we do – school, work, play and beyond. Growing up we also had family devotions most nights of the week, went to a church with solid Bible teaching, and me and my siblings went to Christian schools – beginning with enrolling my older brother in kindergarten while my dad was a grad student and our family barely had enough money to live on. Each time tuition was due, he and my mother trusted God to provide the money because they believed it was so important for their kids to get a biblical foundation. And for many years, they continued to rely on God to provide financially so that just as we were learning our ABCs and 123s, we also daily digested the foundations of the faith, which made me and my siblings wise unto salvation and maximized our growth in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Because of my dad, I have learned what spiritual leadership is – and when to recognize and encourage it in other men, too.
As with my mom, I could go on for quite some time singing my dad’s praises. Just a few more attributes that I must mention tie into his commitment to Christ. He is perhaps the nicest, most compassionate person you will ever meet. He treats people kindly regardless of who they are, which also is why he often attracts broken people who look to him for guidance. Over the years, I have watched him take time out of his always-busy schedule to give biblical counsel to others and bear their burdens. He never gives up on anyone, and, in his faithfulness, has been part of seeing countless lives changed through Christ.
Another that warms my heart is how he is never too busy to talk to me and the rest of our family. He prefers to have long conversations with us (I say that his love language is quality time-dialect quality conversation, but he refuses to take the quiz, lol. I have blogged about my fondness for the love languages as a way of seeing whether I am maximizing my relationships with others, here). And although I am not much of a phone person, I love that I can call my dad and he will pick up anywhere – even in a meeting, if only to say, “My girl [or, in the case of my brothers, my boy], I can’t talk right now, but I’ll call you back.” And he always does.
I will close with sharing that my dad also is great because of his amazing outlook on life. Despite not always having had the best circumstances, he still has a very positive, spiritually focused perspective. He chooses to see even trying, "unfair" times from a biblical perspective. He models what Paul said in Philippians 3: 7-14 about forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead to win the prize for which God will eventually (but, prayerfully, not any time soon) call him heavenward in Christ Jesus (or, to put it in a reference to what I believe is one of his favorite passages, which he quotes often and had us memorize, 2 Timothy 4: 7-8). I’ve seen my daddy change lives for Jesus in so many great ways, and, the more I live, the more I see that I’ve been blessed with the very best father that God could have given me.
Happy Father’s Day, Daddy!
